home with wrong luggage

[tomatopa]

has anyone ever returned home or gotten to the airport with the wrong luggage or an extra suitcase...one that was not yours? our biggest suitcase was not in the terminal when we left the ship. it has been almost 4 weeks and the cruiseline say they can not find it. what have you done...did you call and send the suitcase back...call the pax whose suitcase you had? if you have lost a suitcase, what did you do?

 

thanks for the help. Judy

[prairie_fox]

First off did you have more then one place with your name and a phone number on it. If you only had the one tag it could have been torn off and then there is no ID on it for someone to call. I would check back with the cruise line each day or so just to make sure they are looking for it. If you have the phone number to the Pier people at the terminal also and the airport in lost luggage to make sure it isnt at those places also. If you have insurance you may want to turn in the claim on the bag also. We have almost had one that wasnt ours but returned it right away to the ever growing mess of bags when we found it wasnt ours.

Hope this helps some.

[tomatopa]

we had our name and information in 2 places outside the bag and a sheet of paper inside the bag with the information on it....plus there were perscription drugs with our name on it and the pharmacy phone number...the pharmacy could give them our phone number. i have called X multiple times. the last time they said they are no longer looking for the suitcase. they said to turn in a claim...which i have done. would love to get the things in my suitcase back. i also called Lax and long beach airports and they said no luggage was found during our time frame... have not called the terminal...thought they would turn it over to Celebrity. thanks, Prairie fox for your ideas....any others???

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

Luckily that unfortunate situation has never happened to us. It would be very frustrating. Maybe one thing that helped us avoid having someone accidentally take our bags is that I always put some big, bright, silly, colorful decoration on each of our bags.

 

I did that to make it easier to identify our bags at those bag pick up sites in airports and at cruise lines. But it may also keep an ethically challenged person from grabbing our bag, not in error, but deliberately, because we could easily see someone had our bag.

 

So many bags look just alike, so anything one can do to differentiate one's bags from the others is a big help.

[bellebaby]

I am so sorry to hear about your misfortune. By any chance did you purchase insurance for your cruise? Most of the policies have lost/damaged baggage coverage. Just a thought...

 

B

[tomatopa]

we did purchase travel insurance and are waiting to see what will happen with that.

 

we also had bright colored ribbon on our suitcase and a lot of it....guess whoever tore all this off.

 

thanks for the good thoughts, Judy

[jenjens1023]

I had an airline lose luggage once. After six weeks, when I filed the insurance claim they magically found it. I hope you wrote down what was missing as soon as you determined there was a problem. Our insurance form wanted to know the item, where and when purchased, price paid (I listed full retail even tho I buy almost everything on sale) and what was on the tag (Arizona, Levi's, etc). That was the difficult part--who reads tags? I was glad I made a list of items the night the suitcase didn't show up; it would have been almost impossible to reconstruct it six weeks later.

[gailc]

We have been lucky so far & never had our luggage get lost. We have had our luggage tags rip off. We always put 2 tags on each piece of luggage. We also bring extra tags with us just in case. When our tag ripped off, it has been 1 tag, & we still had 1 tag that stayed on.

 

Gail

[runnerandme]

Judy, I also would try the other ship lines that were in port when we docked. I do not remember who was there. Also did you have any airline tags on the bag? Check with your home airport if so. Drats, I was hoping it would turn up...Connie

[EmJakeBubbie]

Luggage is such a risky business! I do hope the OP resolves this incident satisfactorily! For all readers, here's our story - I hope you will remember it the next time you are in a similar situation:

As we had done hundreds of times before, we parked our car in an off airport lot, had our black bags loaded into the back of the van, along with all the other 'look alike' bags. Yes, multiple ID's and Yes, unusual ribbon to help "our bags" not be mistaken for another. When the van made the 1st off load at the airport, 2 adults/1 child got out and had "their bags" off loaded. We could not see WHICH bags they took, but surely presumed they took what was theirs. Yep, they did that, but as it came to be known when we were off loaded, they had taken OUR bags, as well! OMG! What to do? DH had trustfully put into these bags that were now missing (they were to be our carry on) ALL of his money, BOTH of our passports, and ALL of our travel documents! We were frantic, to say the least and the van driver was of NO assistance! We contacted airport security who was of NO assistance and could have cared less! (never mind the admonishment to "not let your bags out of your possession"). Fast Forward: DH ran to the other terminal to frantically search for our bags (hoping he remembered what those other pax look like). After a major elevation in his blood pressure and me waiting anxious minutes for his return, he did eventually come running back w/our bags. He said the other pax were oblivious and not apologetic, etc. at all. Like, duh.....WhatWereTheyThinking??? You may imagine how paranoid we are now whenever doing a van shuttle. We did buy a new and ugly color of green luggage and have marked it so as to avoid any further issues. The next time you throw your bags in the back of a shuttle with all the other bags (especially if you have bags that look like most others), you may remember this story. DH now wisely puts all the "important stuff" in his "man bag" he never lets out of his hand;)